The Pruning

         I have noticed in life that things just don't make themselves.  When I was younger, I would purchase a model airplane in a box that might have fifty or sixty different parts.  It will stay that way until I put it together.   If you want to make something, you have to take some tools and begin the process and then after a while, the thing that you desire begins to take shape.  I once  watched a man making a wooden bucket out of boards and metal bands.  At first, nothing looked like a bucket but then after placing the boards together, the bucket began to take shape.  If the man had stopped at that point, the bucket still would not have been able to hold water.  He kept working until each piece was perfect, or at least as perfect as he could get them.  Life does the same thing to us.  God is perfecting us into that which He desires for our life.  Each life is different, but the process is much the same.   First Peter 5:10 says, "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."   The process for each believer consists of suffering of one kind or another.  The first epistle of Peter has much to say about suffering and how it relates to the believer.  You could give this epistle the name, "Suffering Leads to Glory."
         Each bit of suffering is used by God to "perfect, stablish, strengthen and settle us."   We have a large bush in the back of our house and our Son, trimmed it even to the point that we could see all of the branches intertwined together, in and out.  Some branches had to be cut off.  I look at the bottom of that bush and see "Life."  There are many aspects that go in and out of our lives everyday.  Some of them involved suffering.  Suffering is never pleasant, but it does have it's rewards.  To be made perfect, is to be made mature.  While we will never attain absolute perfection this side of heaven, we are still a part of the process.  Along with being made perfect are the other benefits of suffering.  The word "settle" has the meaning of being on a sure foundation.  You are being established on a firm foundation.  Our foundation is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.  The process of suffering, which produces the perfecting of our faith and the strengthening, is that which hurts at times.  As the man used the blades to form the bucket and as a sculptor uses a hammer and a chisel to create art out of stone, so God is forming us through the daily sufferings of this life.  If stone or wood could talk, it would probably say that it doesn't like the blows that shape it.  We often reply in much the same way.  Suffering is never pleasant but the fact that it leads to glory makes it worth it all.  Suffering is temporary when compared with the rewards of eternity.  So, when suffering enters your life, remember that you are being formed into that which God wants and He is doing it one bit at a time.  As Philippians 1:6 reminds us, we are His workmanship and He will continue His work in us until we are complete in Him.  Praise God today for His working in your life and shaping you into what you are today and tomorrow.